Ranbir Kapoor

Ranbir Kapoor (pronounced  born 28 September 1982) is an Indian actor and producer. The son of actors Rishi and Neetu, and the grandson of actor-director Raj, Kapoor pursued film-making and method acting at the School of Visual Arts and the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, respectively. He subsequently assisted Sanjay Leela Bhansali on the film Black (2005), and made his acting debut with Bhansali's tragic romance Saawariya (2007), a box office flop. Kapoor rose to prominence with his performances in three films of 2009—the coming-of-age film Wake Up Sid, the comedy Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani, and the drama Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year.
The 2011 drama Rockstar and the 2012 comedy-drama Barfi! earned Kapoor two consecutive Best Actor awards at Filmfare, and a starring role in the 2013 romantic comedy Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani—one of the highest-grossing Bollywood films—established him as a leading Bollywood actor. However, he followed it by starring in a series of films that under-performed at the box office, although his performance in the romantic drama Tamasha (2015) was praised.
Through his career in Bollywood films, Kapoor has become one of the most popular celebrities and one of the highest-paid actors in India. He is the recipient of several awards, including five Filmfare Awards. In addition to acting in films, Kapoor supports charities and causes. He is the co-founder of the production company Picture Shuru Productions, and is a co-owner of the Indian Super League football team Mumbai City FC

Early life and background

Ranbir Kapoor was born on 28 September 1982 in Mumbai to Rishi and Neetu, both actors of the Hindi film industry. He is the great-grandson of Prithviraj and the grandson of actor-director Raj. His elder sister, Riddhima (born 1980), is an interior and fashion designer.The actresses Karisma and Kareena are his first cousins. Kapoor was educated at the Bombay Scottish School in Mahim. As a student, he found little interest in academics and would rank low among his peers.

After completing his pre-university education from the H.R. College of Commerce and Economics, Kapoor relocated to New York City to learn film-making at the School of Visual Arts, and subsequently pursued method acting at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute.In film school, Kapoor directed and starred in two short films, entitled Passion to Love and India 1964. The loneliness of living alone in New York City coupled with his experience in film school, which he described as "useless", inspired him to pursue a career in Bollywood. Upon returning to Mumbai, Kapoor was hired as an assistant director to Sanjay Leela Bhansali on the 2005 film Black. He described the experience: "I was getting beaten up, abused, doing everything from cleaning the floor to fixing the lights from 7 am to 4 am, but I was learning every day." He later remarked that his motive for working on Black was to get Bhansali to offer him an acting job.kapoor has been vocal about how his parent's troubled marriage affected him as a child: "Sometimes the fights would get really bad. I would be sitting on the steps, my head between my knees, till five or six in the morning, waiting for them to stop".These experiences led to a "reservoir of emotions building up inside [him]", which he said compelled him to develop an interest in film. In his early years, Kapoor was close to his mother, but had a dysfunctional relationship with his father. After completing his tenth standard examinations, he worked as an assistant director to his father on the film Aa Ab Laut Chalen (1999), during which he developed a closer bond with him.

Debut and initial success (2007–10)

Following the release of Black, Bhansali cast Kapoor as the protagonist of his 2007 tragic romance Saawariya, alongside Sonam Kapoor and Rani Mukerji. The film tells the story of a tramp, played by him, who falls obsessively in love with a woman awaiting the return of her lover. In an interview with the news and entertainment portal Rediff.com, Kapoor stated that his character was written as a tribute to his grandfather's iconic roles as a tramp. Saawariya was the first Indian film to be produced by a Hollywood studio (Sony Pictures Entertainment), and was a highly anticipated release. However, film critics were disappointed with the picture with BBC's Jaspreet Pandohar calling it a "misfire on a massive scale". CNN-IBN's Rajeev Masand considered it "contrived and fake", but was impressed by Kapoor's "affable charm" and wrote that "he’s got that star quality to him which is so rare to find." At the box office, Saawariyafailed to earn profits. However, at the annual Filmfare Awards ceremony, Kapoor was awarded a Best Male Debuttrophy.
Despite the commercial failure of Saawariya, Kapoor was contracted by Yash Raj Films for a primary role in the Siddharth Anand-directed romantic comedy Bachna Ae Haseeno (2008). The film was his first commercial success, in which his role was that of a womaniser who is romantically involved with three women, played by Bipasha Basu, Minissha Lamba, and Deepika Padukone, at different stages of his life. Rachel Saltz of The New York Times expressed mixed views on his performance, but predicted that his "puppy-dog sweetness" would "serve him well as a Bollywood leading man".
In 2009, Kapoor had three film releases. In Dharma Productions's Wake Up Sid, a coming of age film from director Ayan Mukerji, Kapoor portrayed Siddharth "Sid" Mehra, a rich, lazy teenager whose life undergoes a series of changes after interacting with an ambitious journalist (played by Konkana Sen Sharma). When Mukerji narrated the then-untitled script of the film to him, Kapoor came up with the title himself. The media expressed doubt on the film's financial prospect as it depicted a romantic relationship between a younger man and an older woman.It eventually emerged as a sleeper hit and garnered acclaim from the critics.Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama reviewed that Kapoor's performance in the film proved that he was "amongst the best in the business today".
Kapoor next starred opposite Katrina Kaif in Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani, a slapstick comedy from director Rajkumar Santoshi, that emerged as the fourth highest-grossing Bollywood film of 2009. Film critic Gaurav Malani praised Kapoor's flair for comedy, but criticised his "over-excited husky baritone". Kapoor's final release that year was the Shimit Amin-directed Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year, a drama about a sardar who aspires to be a salesman.Film critic Mayank Shekhar praised the film and found Kapoor's performance to be "astonishingly sincere", but the film earned little at the box office. Kapoor later professed to being highly disappointed by the film's commercial failure. At the 55th Filmfare Awards, Kapoor was awarded the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor for his performances in all three of his 2009 releases, and he also received two Best Actor nominations at the ceremony for Wake Up Sid and Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani.